Canada Park, a popular picnicking spot for Israelis, created upon the rubble of Palestinian homes

Heider Abu Ghosh stands in over the ruins of his childhood home in Imwas, now Canada Park, built atop a series of Palestinian villages outside of Jerusalem, destroyed by Israeli forces in 1967. (Photo: Mersiha Gadzo)

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Twelve-year-old Ahmad Ali Zaid awoke at 5 a.m. on June 6, 1967, to the sound of loudspeakers blaring outside his home, demanding that the sleeping residents of Beit Nuba village immediately leave their homes.

“Leave your homes, leave the village. Go to Jordan; this is a military zone,” the voice commanded as Israeli tanks rolled through. “Anyone who doesn’t leave will have their house demolished on top of them.”

In their pajamas, with no time to even put on shoes, residents frantically rushed outside.

“We left because we were afraid of getting killed,” Zaid told Mondoweiss. “We were scared because we remembered [the massacres that] happened in 1948.”

Others in the neighboring villages of Imwas and Yalu northwest of Jerusalem woke up to Israeli soldiers pounding on their doors and ordering them to gather in the village yard.

“Once everyone was gathered in the yard, the officer said, ‘Leave! March until you reach Jeddah [Saudi Arabia]. This is our land, from here until Jeddah,'” said Ahmad Abu Ghosh, head of the Imwas Association based in Ramallah.

Ten thousand inhabitants of Imwas, Yalu and Beit Nuba trekked for days through the mountains to Ramallah, leaving their belongings behind. Four seniors and a one-year-old baby died along the way.

The elderly and disabled residents who were unable to leave their homes had their houses demolished on top of them. Eighteen were killed, buried underneath the rubble.

The Israeli army, after razing these occupied villages to the ground, refused to let the refugees return home for “security reasons.” Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, Israel is required to allow their return but the villagers remain displaced to this day, mostly across the occupied West Bank and in Jordan.

Israeli forces had already depopulated and destroyed the nearby village of Deir Ayyoub in 1948, but failed to take control of the other three. An Israeli general, Uzi Narkiss, described the operation to Woods as appearing to be retribution.

“I think that it was an operation based on the difficult souvenirs of ’48. It can look as if it were a sort of revenge,” he said.

What took place amounts to a war crime, as under the Fourth Geneva Convention, the destruction of homes is permitted only when there is a direct relation between the property and the overcoming of enemy forces.

These villages, however, were destroyed after the war had already ended. The Jordanian army withdrew from the area the night before the villagers’ expulsion, and the Israeli army occupied the area without any resistance. The villagers held up white flags to send a message of non-violence.

Heider Abu Ghosh. (Photo: Mersiha Gadzo)

Canada Park, once a series of Palestinian villages outside of Jerusalem, destroyed by Israeli forces in 1967. (Photo: Mersiha Gadzo)

Only a few traces remain of their beautiful stone houses, which stood among orchards of grapevines, olives and almonds. Spring water ran through the villages.

Today, their villages are barely recognizable amid more than five million trees planted over the years as part of Ayalon Canada Park, a popular picnicking spot for Israelis that was subsidized by Canadian taxpayers, including the construction of a wildflower trail as recently as 2015.

The Jewish National Fund (JNF) was founded in 1901 to create a Jewish state in Palestine. It bought and developed land in Ottoman-era Palestine exclusively for Jews, and after achieving its goal in 1948, JNF expanded branches worldwide. It now has charitable status in 50 countries, including Canada. It presents itself as “Israel’s largest green organization.”

In 1972, the Canadian branch, JNF Canada, raised $15m ($90m in today’s dollars) to create Canada Park, built on top of the demolished villages in occupied Palestine. Since then, the land has been treated as though it is in Israel proper rather than the occupied West Bank. The Separation Barrier prevents Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank from accessing Canada Park, including families that used to live on the land.

A 1986 UN Special Committee reported to the UN Secretary-General that it “considers it a matter of deep concern” that the villagers are denied the right to return due to the construction of Canada Park by JNF Canada.

Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is illegal under international law. The Canadian government also doesn’t recognize permanent Israeli control over the territories occupied in 1967, which includes Canada Park.

However, JNF Canada has always advertised the park to be in Israel. In a fundraising letter fromSeptember 1984, JNF Canada wrote: “Income tax receipts will be issued for all your contributions and your donation will help complete the Grove in Canada Park, in Israel…” according to a report by the Canadian human rights group Independent Jewish Voices (IJV).

Imwas before it was destroyed by Israeli forces in 1967. (Photo: Courtesy of the Imwas Association)

The expulsion of Imwas’ residents in 1967. (Photo: Courtesy of the Imwas Association)

IJV says the creation of Canada Park contravenes international law and Canadian public policy. Under the United Nations Security Council Resolution 465 and 446, Israel may not change the physical and geographical nature of the occupied Palestinian territory nor affect its demographic composition.

“JNF Canada claims to operate on behalf of all Jews, and as Jewish Canadians, we don’t want to be implicated,” said Tyler Levitan, IJV’s national coordinator.

“It’s very clear that the goals of the organization are to favor Jewish settlement over the well-being and rights of Palestinians who were already living there,” Levitan told Mondoweiss. “For them to do this under the guise of charity is an insult, of course, to other charity organizations who do important work and as a means to conceal the true nature of the organization, often times using environmentally friendly imagery.

“What they’re actually interested in is to appropriate lands and resources from Palestinians for Jewish control and for settlements in historic Palestine,” Levitan said, noting that JNF Canada also funded Jewish-only villages in the Galilee where Palestinians used to live before their expulsion.

Formal complaints have been made to the Canadian government for over forty years.

JNF Canada has funded at least three other parks that extend past the Green Line into the occupied West Bank: Begin Park, Yatir Forest, and Gilo Forest and Park.

JNF Canada was contacted for comment but did not respond.

Although in Wood’s 1991 feature for the CBC, former JNF Director of Information Benny Mushkin said that the village of Yalu wasn’t situated within the park’s boundaries and that Canadian taxpayers’ money wasn’t spent on occupied Palestinian territory. “All we did was take the area that was here, reconstructed it, enhanced it and improved it… The area is much, much nicer now than it was before,” Mushkin said.

According to Israeli writer and peace activist Uri Davis, all Canadians are implicated in a “war crime” since JNF Canada’s charitable, tax-exempt status means that tax deductions for donations are “drawn out of the commonwealth, namely out of the pocket of each tax-paying person in Canada.” Canadian taxpayers fund up to 25 percent of JNF Canada’s budget.

The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) confirmed in an email that a charity’s purposes and activities cannot violate Canadian public policy, but couldn’t comment specifically on JNF Canada due to confidentiality.

However, a CRA internal document from 2010 noted that there is no clear public policy prohibiting charitable activities in the occupied territory: “… in the absence of legislation or some other clear and compelling public pronouncement, the CRA cannot treat the fact that otherwise charitable activities taking place in the Occupied Territories are a barrier to charitable status.”

Pine trees now cover 7,900 acres of Canada Park, impeding the refugees’ right to return, a demand they continue to make today. According to Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, only a tenth of local indigenous tree species have survived the JNF’s reforesting. The pine tree grows quickly, ensuring that expelled Palestinians cannot return to the rubble of their homes, which is concealed by the foliage.

According to the Israeli NGO Zochrot, more than two-thirds of JNF’s forests and sites are situated on the ruins of Palestinian villages. Eighty-six Palestinian villages are buried underneath their parks and another 400 Palestinian villages were destroyed and replaced with Jewish communities.

Heider Abu Ghosh, a former resident of Imwas who has been living in Ramallah since the expulsion, gazes at a small clearing among the trees where his house used to stand. Only a few stones remain; the only reason he is sure of the spot is that his childhood home stood directly opposite the Emmaus-Nicopolis archaeological site, which remains standing today.

Rabin’s vision of a road connecting Tel Aviv to Jerusalem- realized in what is now Israel’s busiest highway – lies just yards away.

“For anyone, your birthplace is your roots, your memories. When you are uprooted from this place, you lose certain beloved memories, certain photographs. It’s very sad when I go back,” Heider said.

At the Imwas Association office in Ramallah, a miniature model of Imwas lies on the table protected by a glass case. Refugees from Imwas spent four years reconstructing their village from memory, carefully placing each house, school, road and tree that previously stood in what is now Canada Park. The memories of their villages are all that they have left.

Ahmad Abu Ghosh said that an Israeli military leader met the committee of the three villages after their expulsion and offered to build them homes in other locations.

“We will not accept a dunum in heaven instead of our dunum in Imwas,” Abu Ghosh said the group responded, “We want to return.”

About Mersiha Gadzo

Mersiha Gadzo is a multimedia journalist. Her articles have appeared in Al Jazeera, CBC, Canadian Dimension and the Middle East Eye. She tweets at @MersihaGadzo.

What sort of countries have such friendly relations with the sole apartheid regime in the world?

Canada and Australia present themselves as cleancut social democracies that uphold human rights, but apartheid racist Israel seem to hold them very dear for some reason.

Maybe Eljay can explain this weird relationship? After all, he hold the belief that Israel is grouped with Islamic states and weirdly enough, Japan for being illegitimate supremacist states. Yet its not Japan or Islamic states that help Israel preserve its apartheid status and continue violate human rights, its countries like Canada or Australia.

he hold the belief that Israel is grouped with Islamic states and weirdly enough, Japan

i’m sure eljay is well aware or canada’s relationship with israel as well as every american here is aware of the US relationship w/israel. do you think israel’s relationship with SA is merely a “belief”. please explain?

Its true the American-Israeli strategic partnership and strong diplomatic relations is noted by most Americans and is a key focus point for many pro-Palestinian activists. But this relationship is far from clandestine nor does it project any form of hypocrisy on the US since America is extremely upfront with its support for Israel due to various factors. Unlike countries like Australia or Canada, the US doesnt pretend to be bastion of universal human rights for every nation and cultures of the world, just those it allied with.

What I feel is incorrect with Eljays activism against Israel is that its based on a flawed thinking or ideology instead of judging the actions of the state.

By basing his opposition of Israel to a loose set of principles labelled as supremacism, and associating it with other countries like Japan and Islamic states, it serves to distract our focus from discreet illegal actions by Israel done through direct cooperation with aforementioned countries.

|| Bont Eastlake: … Canada and Australia present themselves as cleancut social democracies that uphold human rights, but apartheid racist Israel seem to hold them very dear for some reason.

Maybe Eljay can explain this weird relationship? After all, he hold the belief that Israel is grouped with Islamic states and weirdly enough, Japan for being illegitimate supremacist states. Yet its not Japan or Islamic states that help Israel preserve its apartheid status and continue violate human rights, its countries like Canada or Australia. ||

Your feigned confusion is amusing, Bontococcus.

The structure of a country is not the same as its foreign policy. But you already know this.

“Jewish State” and Islamic State and – as it has been indicated to me – Japan are all supremacist constructs: The first two are religion-based; the third is racially-based.

The difference between the foreign policy actions of Canada and Australia on the one hand and Islamic State and Japan on the other may be explained by the considerably greater influence Zionist organizations wield within the former two states vs. the latter two.

To be more precise, one could observe (as Annie did re Saudi), that some Islamic states do in fact “help Israel preserve its apartheid status and continue violate human rights”, alongside countries like Canada or Australia. That doesn’t detract anything from your argument.

Yeah but those Islamic countries that help Israel dont do it because its part of their faith or due to popular demand of their peoples, they do it because of corrupt and oppressive government that is backed by foreign powers. They are just as problematic as the secular Abbas government in West Bank.

More information about Canada’s very conservative choice imposed by law by the last conservative prime minister, crime sinister as well, Stephen Harper. The worst prime minister in Canada’s foreign relations history. Be patient. I must get to work now.

But this relationship is far from clandestine nor does it project any form of hypocrisy…..but those Islamic countries that help Israel dont do it because its part of their faith or due to popular demand of their peoples

i seriously doubt the US, canada, or australia support israel because it’s part of their faith or popular demand either. as a matter of fact, did you know according to a recent Google Consumer Surveys, June 15-18, to a representative sample of 1,030 American adult Internet users, “A majority of American adults – 70.3 percent – do not consider themselves Zionists when defined as “A Zionist is a person who believes in the development and protection of a Jewish nation in what is now Israel.”? Only 24.9 percent say, “I consider myself a Zionist”. so it’s certainly not “popular demand” that imposes the 2016 Democratic party platform to references Israel 9 times or the gop party platform 19! so i’d beg to differ there’s nothing clandestine going on nor that it doesn’t project any form of hypocrisy.

By basing his opposition of Israel to a loose set of principles labelled as supremacism, and associating it with other countries like Japan and Islamic states, it serves to distract our focus from discreet illegal actions by Israel done through direct cooperation with aforementioned countries.

ok, i am all for not being distracted from focusing on discreet illegal actions by israel done through direct cooperation with the US, canada and australia. speaking of which, did you know:

Americans are strongly opposed to massive, disproportionate, unconditional US foreign aid to Israel. They want Congress to consider Israel’s status as the region’s sole nuclear power. They would renegotiate or cancel the lopsided 1985 trade deal. They oppose relocation of the US embassy to Jerusalem, as well as the policy of “no-daylight” US coordination with Israel.

Yet most members of Congress strongly support these initiatives, including recent formal condemnations of the United Nations as inherently “anti-Israel” and ongoing attempts to outlaw grassroots boycotts of Israel over its endemic human rights abuses.

What maintains the immense void between the views of most Americans and their elected representatives? The Israel lobby.

|| Bont Eastlake: … By basing his opposition of Israel to a loose set of principles labelled as supremacism, and associating it with other countries like Japan and Islamic states, it serves to distract our focus from discreet illegal actions by Israel done through direct cooperation with aforementioned countries. ||

You are a slimy piece of work, Bontococcus.

The association of Israel with Japan and Islamic states started here when you asked me to name other states that I might consider to be supremacist.

I replied to your question. Since then, I have not made a habit of association Israel with Japan or Islamic states.

You, on the other hand, have repeatedly dredged up my reply as a distraction, all the while attributing the distraction to me. A real jerk move, Bontococcus.

lol, that’s hysterical eljay. it’s like pre planning your spam and snagging complicitous responses intended to set up your ideological opponents. O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive!

Yeah, sure (but as Annie already commented) the colonialists and colonials don’t really have more than a popular or religious mandate either.

Besides, that objection is a meaningless diversion anyway: the problem that you identified is a position that defends the absolute primacy of some “democracy/equality” concept –according to rather subjective criteria.

That “democracy” is supposed to trump international law, old-established fairness rules of self-determination, ownership of territory, and non-intervention in the absence of aggression, as encapsulated in this recent post, expressing agreement to outright annexation by the invader as long as so-called religious supremacism is not practiced:

Had Israel annexed the West Bank, Israelis – not “the Jews” – would then have been entitled to settle in the West Bank…
…
I agree that democracy is a moral value.
However, supremacism – including religion-based “Jewish State” supremacism – is not a moral value.

That’s all you ever answer –remarks about style. Never to the meat.
I quoted you, that’s all. It’s obvious: for you, ownership of the land does not count at all, but just some idea, your own, of “democracy”. If the invaders by miracle become “democratic” according to your specs, they get a full pardon and the right to remain. All they have to do to get other people’s land is to conquer and “annex” it. Enjoy.

You oppose Israel because according to you they are supremacist, like Japan and Islamic states. Is this correct?

If the above is true, countries that are not based on supremacist constructs, you know like Canada and Australia, are not subjects to scrutiny and calls for accountability. Despite Canada and Australia having directly assisted Israel in carrying out it many crimes.

You till date have yet to make a single statement on the criminal ties between YOUR government and Israel, nor have you called for any form of accountability for the role Canada played in aparheid Israel’s past and present criminal activity.

Instead, all you have done is project supremacist ideals yourself by sanctimoniusly criticising Israel while enjoying the privileges from being Canadian, privileges made possible from being part of the pro-Israel criminal racket. Do you note the gross moral inconsistency?

Yet you live on land stolen from the native Canadian Aborigines, and the “Palestinian” village was built on land that was originally owned by Jews.

2) Silamcuz :

{Eljay: I believe that my obligation is to support the universal and consistent application of justice, accountability and equality…]

Good, then I suggest start with the Canadian government collusion with Zionist , in all aspect of governance. In addition, you should also acknowledge that as a Canadian with no ancestry to the First Nation peoples you are as much of a settler-colonist as the Jewish settlers in the West Bank and the rightful owners of the land are the indigenous pre-Columbian nations.

all you [Eljay] have done is project supremacist ideals yourself by sanctimoniusly criticising Israel while enjoying the privileges from being Canadian.

——————-

Arafatbastard is a undisguised illiberal Zionist. Silamcuz and Bont Eastlake are fake progressives pushing Zionist talking points. Two sides of the same coin. Their game is to accuse “Western” progressives of hypocrisy, to put them on the defensive, and thereby divert and distract.

Zionism meant different things as it progressed through history. Its founder, Herzl did not really envision the military annexation of Palestine by Jewish armed forces when he wanted a Jewish state. He was open to having it set up anywhere it was pragmatic to do so, including places in Argentina and even Africa. He also wanted Jews to chip in and collectively pay for their new land, not violently appropriate it using bombs and guns.

The annexation of Palestine by European Jewish migrants was an opportunistic exploitation of the chaos and confusion in the region brought by European colonisation.

Of course, having set up the state Israel resisted local Arab opposition to its existence and sustained itself not through Jewish supergenius and miracles but from British ill-gained money, weapons, technology and diplomacy followed by more Western countries outside of the Soviet bloc. The Palestinians, having just came out of centuries of foreign rule, not having an army, centralized governance, UN representation, its own currency etc stood no chance.

I did not ignore your points on the Israeli lobby, I just felt they were too cliche plus that line of activism has been heavily infiltrated by genuine anti-semites and right wing nationalists. Not that i disagree with you with regards to the Israel lobby, I just dont feel its a worthwhile endeavor to focus our activism on it, at this moment in time.

I feel there are other movements against Israeli apartheid that possess more radical ideals worth supporting and giving platform to. Maybe we should be looking into them instead.

classic divert silamuz. you allegedly agree we “give guns and money to a group you know is going to use them for ethnic cleansing and perpertuate apartheid” because of the lobby you “just dont feel its a worthwhile endeavor to focus” on it. ask why they do it, ignore and evade discussion of it, while simultaneously claiming you ‘wish more activists participated in this type of conversation’.

Thank you for this excellent piece.
Nor did Israel leave these villages alone between 1948 & 1967. The followed extracted from “State of Terror” 295-296:
On the 2nd of November 1950, an Israeli patrol of twelve soldiers penetrated about 400 metres into the West Bank and discovered three children from Yalo village collecting wood. One, an eight-year old girl, ran away at the sight of the patrol, escaping with a bullet in her thigh. The soldiers dragged away the other two children, a brother and sister aged twelve and ten, just as their father and uncle rushed to the scene. As described by Glubb, the children were forced into a ditch “and there butchered by one soldier with a sten-gun, while the rest of the patrol looked on. All this was plainly visible to their parents, standing helpless on the border only a few hundred yards away”.
The boy was dead, with two bullets in his head and one in his shoulder. The girl—ten-year old Fakhriyeh Muhammad Ali Alayyan—had been shot seven times, but was still breathing. Once the soldiers moved on, her father carried her away, while the uncle carried the boy’s body. Fakhriyeh lived several hours, long enough to make a statement to the authorities.
This atrocity was unusual in that it was witnessed, documented, and hit the British press, saddling Israel with a public relations problem. Questions were raised in the House of Commons, and the British Zionist establishment’s denials convinced few. Both the MAC and UN observers confirmed the incident as do, we know these decades later, internal Israeli records.
Yalo was targeted again less than three months later, on 29 January (1951). About sixteen Israeli soldiers descended on the village, approaching simultaneously from two directions while attacking with gunfire and grenades. The Tulkarm area was invaded by Israeli soldiers on the night on 2 February, and the following day the IDF killed three Palestinians in an attack on Saffa.

The picture of Imwas before it’s destruction is heartbreaking – it must have been wonderful to live there. Forced from their homes, except for the elderly and disabled who couldn’t leave quick enough, only to be buried alive in the rubble (how many?) and the deaths resulting in the march to Ramallah yet more and more fodder for the ICC, God willing.

“…the villagers all had Jordanian citizenship…. They were Jordanian, not Palestinian.”

Wrong. To enable Palestinians living under its rule to travel to other countries, Jordan granted them passports, but not citizenship, thereby not jeopardizing their rights as refugees set forth in UNGA Resolution 194.

The Jordanian parliament also acknowledged the right of Palestinians to self-determination by stating that Jordan’s annexation of the West Bank was done “without prejudicing the final settlement of Palestine’s just case within the sphere of national aspirations, inter-Arab cooperation and international justice.” (New York Times, April 25, 1950)

The shameless Zionists. And one day, hopefully soon, you will be called to account for all your crimes. As a Canadian, I totally resent this place being called Canada Park. Should be called Murder Park.

…and the historical currents and pressures and ideas which made Canada and the US, are simply dwarfed, completely put in the shade by Zionism! There’s no judging or putting any limitations on great human movements like that.

Yes, following their invasion (circa 1184 BCE) Jews established a minor kingdom (the United Kingdom of Israel) between the River Jordan and the Sea that lasted a mere 77 years (about 1004-927 BCE) and never controlled the coast from Jaffa to Gaza. Even the Hasmonean Dynasty under the Maccabees lasted only 70 years (about 140 – 70 BCE) and it was under Roman tutelage.

By way of comparison, apart from about 200 years when the Crusaders occupied Palestine in whole or in part, Egyptians ruled the region between the River and the Sea for 615 intermittent years, including the era of the Muslim Mamelukes and the Romans ruled the region for 677 continuous years. It was also ruled for several centuries by two other peoples: the Arabs (Muslims), for 447 continuous years (638-1085) and the Ottoman Turks (Muslims), for 401 uninterrupted years (1517-1918.)

To quote renowned historian/anthropologist and “Holy Land” specialist, Professor Ilene Beatty: “When we speak of ‘Palestinians’ or of the ‘Arab population [of Palestine]‘, we must bear in mind their Canaanite origin. This is important because their legal right to the country stems… from the fact that the Canaanites were first, which gives them priority; their descendants have continued to live there, which gives them continuity; and (except for the 800,000 dispossessed refugees [of 1948 along with the further hundreds of thousands expelled before and after the war Israel launched on 5 June 1967]) they are still living there, which gives them present possession. Thus we see that on purely statistical grounds they have a proven legal right to their own land.” (“Arab and Jew in the Land of Canaan,” 1957)

By 1947, 48% of the total land area of mandated Palestine was privately owned (‘mulk khaas’) by Palestinian Arabs. Total Jewish privately owned land was only between 6% and 7%. About 45% of the total land area was state owned, i.e. by citizens of Palestine – only 20% of the Jewish immigrants had taken out citizenship – and it was comprised of Communal Property (‘mashaa’), Endowment Property, (‘waqf’), and Government Property, (‘miri’.) (The British Mandate kept an extensive land registry and the UN used the registry during its early deliberations. It has in its archives 453,000 records of individual Palestinian owners defined by name, location & area.)

Can you give a little background on this professor Beatty you so adore. Like where she taught or what degrees she had. The only thing I can find on Amazon is the one book, published in 1957 and still in first edition.

Arafatbastard: “… and the “Palestinian” village was built on land that was originally owned by Jews.”

Yep, according to the most brilliant Zionist scientists the history of this land starts with a few decades of Jewish posession and according to the most brilliant Zionist lawyers this was enough to create an eternal claim and justify the destruction of the village, the expulsion of its inhabitants and the confiscation of its land in the post Nazi era.

Apart from her book, I learned of Professor Beatty from eminent Professor emeritus of the ME Studies department at Harvard, Dr. Walid Khalidi, who holds her in high regard. I assume you are familiar with Professor Khalidi. If not, I highly recommend him to you.

There are many points where I might disagree with Mist as to ancient times, but it is indeed true that the Bible makes no claim that the Israelites and their Judahite subset were the original owners or inhabitants of Palestine/Canaan. The Philistines, presented as a subset of the inhabitants of Canaan (my predictive text said ‘Canada’), are there before Abraham arrives. The inhabitants of Canaan, like Abraham, mostly worship God Most High, Abraham not yet knowing that deity as Yahweh. There is some suggestion that the later sexual immorality of the Canaanites caused the land to vomit them out but on the whole the right of the Israelites, violent immigrants and absolutely not natives or originals, to take possession, expel and kill where necessary is presented as an expression of the absolute right of God to set normal morality aside for purposes no one fully understands at the time. That such things were contrary to normal morality was as obvious to our remote ancestors as it is to us, or to most of us. I think that some people, Jews and Christians, have wanted to discredit the Biblical story just because they don’t want to be heirs to the terrifying Joshua. But there is in all of us that yen to be the ones who are too special for the normal rules, to have that thunderous judgement for our cause setting aside those ordinary, petty things.

So do you have any data on Professor Beatty that makes her “renowned”. I can’t seem to find out anything about her. She doesn’t seem to fit the definition of “renowned”. Do you know where she obtained a degree or taught?

What comes up when you search for Ilene Beatty is a number of references to her book, stated to have been published in Chicago by Regnery in 1957. More than one reference, it seemed to me, uses the word ‘renowned’. There was an apparent picture of the book’s front cover, but with the author’s name presented as ‘ Beatty, Ilene’, which seems very strange, more like a student register than a normal book cover. Is there something about Regnery’s house style that I don’t know? My impression is that we may be dealing with a pseudonym, there being no available bio that I (or jon, evidently) can find. Does anyone have a copy of the book? To me its cited remarks seem quite plausible, of course.

10 posts already, and the usual John 66 or 61 or whatever he numbers himself is playing everybody like a violin to yet again deviate all discussion to the moronically insignificant –the fame of late Ms Beatty McNulty about whom he knows jackshit. Not that he even offered a rebuttal to her book with facts or anything, just keeps on and on.
The way he once again got a rise from us, I suppose he deserves a pay hike from his Propaganda-Abteilung.

Stop living in the past. Move on already! Park Canada will remain a public park. Take the keys and photo’s of the small village with barely 21 people, and bury them deep in the ground. Palestinians made a huge mistake by not accepting the 1947 partition plan. Paying the price for this mistake means moving on. Move on already!

Sigh.
To be brief:
Palestinians rejected the Partition Plan (UNGA Res. 181, Nov. 29/47) for entirely justified reasons based on international law. While Jews made up just 31% of the population (90% of foreign origin, only 20% had become citizens, thousands were illegal immigrants) and privately owned only between 6% and 7% of the land (whereas Palestinian Arabs privately owned 48%), the Partition Plan (recommendatory only, no legal foundation, contrary to the British Class A Mandate and the Atlantic Charter, never adopted by the UNSC) outrageously recommended they receive 56% of Palestine (including its most fertile areas) in which Palestinian Arabs made up 45% of the population. (10% of Palestine’s Jewish population consisted of native Palestinian/Arab Jews who were anti-Zionist.)

Rubbing salt into the wound, the United States quashed a proposal based on international law put forth by Arab delegates at the UN that a referendum be conducted in Palestine to determine the wishes of the majority regarding the Partition Plan. The United States also thwarted their request to have the matter referred to the International Court of Justice.

You say that in 1947 Jews held private land of between 6% and 7%. I take your own numbers and throw them back into your face and ask you, “What were the numbers in 1905?”.
What was all the fuss about when the local Arabs ran to the Ottoman overlords and forced a ban of the sale of land to Jews. I know what it was. You still have to learn.
The Arabs have never accepted that there is a place for an independent Jewish State anywhere in the Middle East. You have yet to understand this. They still have the belief today, as they had during the entire conflict, that the Jews can be driven into the sea. When you talk about “outrageous” actions, you should look at why you give blind support for a people who are not deserving. And when you talk about wounds you should rather be thinking of all the Jews who have been wounded by the violent actions taken by the Arabs.

The Arabs have never accepted that there is a place for an independent Jewish State that has been created by driving Arabs out of their homes, stealing their farms and businesses, and denying them their rights.

“And when you talk about wounds you should rather be thinking of all the Jews who have been wounded by the violent actions taken by the Arabs. ”

Why should we not be thinking of all the Arabs who have been wounded by the Zionists? What makes Jews so special?

eljay: When you you refer to the single Jewish State being a religion-supremacist construct, are you also referring to all the other Muslim states in the same way? So it’s okay for the Muslims but not for the Jews? Or are you laser focused on Jews, which then makes you what exactly?

|| Emet: eljay: When you you refer to the single Jewish State being a religion-supremacist construct, are you also referring to all the other Muslim states in the same way? So it’s okay for the Muslims but not for the Jews? Or are you laser focused on Jews, which then makes you what exactly? ||

Dude, slow down! You’re so eager to label me an anti-Semite that you’re tripping over yourself waiting for me to answer your question.

I don’t believe that any state has a right to exist as a supremacist state of any kind. IMO, a religion-supremacist “Muslim State” is as unjust and immoral a construct as a religion-supremacist “Jewish State”.

BTW, I gotta say it’s cute how you refer to Israel as “the single Jewish State” as though its uniqueness somehow diminishes the immorality and injustice of the construct.

Sheqer: “When you you refer to the single Jewish State being a religion-supremacist construct, are you also referring to all the other Muslim states in the same way?”

Allow me to answer this question. Every state and especially Nazi Germany is a supremacist construct when it divides its citizens into nationals and citizens based on heritage or faith to grant them different rights and doesn’t have the right to equality explicetely enshrined in its constitution. And if this state also violates the basic human rights of one group to maintain the dominance of another – for exampling by preventing members of the former group to return – than we are dealing with an Apartheid state.

Emet: “Or are you laser focused on Jews, which then makes you what exactly?”

Why don’t you try to argue without making a difference between Jews and Nonjews? Because you are laser focused on Jews?

“Stop living in the past. Move on already! Park Canada will remain a public park “emet

Hmmm,

Emet.

“The San Remo Conference gave Jews the sole right to settle in all the area west of the Jordan River, including the West Bank and all of Jerusalem. Both houses of congress voted to support this. A few months after San Remo, Churchill chose to ignore the decision made at San Remo and effectively stole 80% of the land away from the Jewish people. – See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/profile/emet/#sthash.vIPeiOjX.dpuf”

Well. Lets consider the strategic location of the village and the fact that it has been a battle site for thousands of years.

Many battles were fought for control of this valley. One of the most famous was the war between Joshua and the Canaanite kings, which ended with the famous cry, “Sun, stand still in Givon, and the moon in the Ayalon Valley” (Joshua 10:12). There were also fierce battles in the Ayalon Valley between the Hasmoneans and the Seleucids in the 2nd century BCE.

According to tradition, the battles between the Hasmoneans and the Seleucid Army took place, including an observation point with a view of Ma’ale Beit Horon and the Emmaus area. This is where the first battles of the Hasmoneans took place from 167 to 165 BCE.

In the first stage of the Arab occupation of the land of Israel in the 7th century CE, this valley served as a center for their forces. The crusaders also considered the Ayalon Valley a strategic asset and built an important fortress in Latrun, Le Toron Des Chevaliers, the castle of the knights. Many fierce battles also took place here during the War of Independence, between the IDF and the Jordanian Legion.

|| Jackdaw: Heartbreaking, the destruction of Emmaus? Well. Lets consider the strategic location of the village and the fact that it has been a battle site for thousands of years. … So you see, there is nothing new under the sun. Is there? ||

So what you’re essentially saying is that it’s OK for “the Arabs” to destroy Israel because that would be “nothing new under the sun”. Interesting. Well, at least we won’t hear anymore whining from Zionists about anti-Semitism and “Jew hatred” and Holocaust the next time Hamas or other “the Arabs” engage in “fierce battles” with current-day ancient Israelites.

(It’s weird: I oppose the destruction of Israel, but Zionists continually challenge others to destroy it.)

Suffering is bad for all that it has happened to others before, infliction is bad for all that others have done it before. The rights that people have are not contingent on the name they call themselves by, the names of any of the ancestral groups from which they come or on whether or not they live in the territory of a former empire that has been partitioned. It is wrong to exclude people from their homes, except to a limited extent by the processes of legitimate criminal law, and it is wrong to exercise sovereign power over disfranchised subject, except perhaps for a time where consent is, by recognised custom, obtained by other means. People who do these bad things cannot acquire rights simply by having done wrong but sometimes ‘for the avoidance of endless trouble’ rights do spring from agreements which bring a period of violence to an end. It took us long years to achieve that sort of agreement after the dire events of England in the 500s, likewise at different times in the US and Canada. There is as yet no such agreement in Palestine, where mass exclusion has never been corrected or compensated and where power over a disfranchised population persists grievously.

Accept that this is the post Nazi era. International law has changed, human rights were introduced and settler colonialism is a no go. But the Zionists mindset seems to be stuck in the middle age or even bible times.

“Accept that this is the post Nazi era. International law has changed, human rights were introduced and settler colonialism is a no go. “

It is unfortunate, but a group with overwhelming power, numbers and resources, which by all demographic measures will be doubling and tripling every generation, can simply ignore those rules. And, I might mention, with a record of victory through the centuries.

Israel really is not a religious-supremacist state. I have had far more exposure to Jewish religion in the USA than I ever had in Israel. My grandfather was a star in a Yeshiva back in the Ukraine, but he developed total contempt for Judaism and became a Zionist.

Jabotinsky thought religious Jews were morons, but he appreciated their energy.

I believe most Israeli Zionists religious and non-religious have a similar opinion of Christian religious fundamentalist Zionists.

Generally, as I have pointed out in the past and as Avigail Abarbanel has agreed, in Israel we simply don’t distinguish among Judaism, Jewishness, Jewish nation (Jewry/Judentum), and Zionism. American Jewish or non-Jewish efforts to distinguish them as separate ideological or conceptual constructs just look like pilpul or quodlibet to me.

[I am not sure how to explain my point in ordinary English, but to use the English translation of Ferdinand de Saussure’s terminology, there are in Saussure’s usage ~4 signifiers all referring to a single signified.]

If I get some time to spare, I will try to write up something on 19th century Central and Eastern European Jewish conceptualization of identity.

It will help explain why so many Christian Germans despised the Jews involved in feminism and regenderization (?) movements. (Gay liberation is not new but is a rerun of the sexual avant-garde in Germany.)

I will also try to elucidate, compare, and contrast

1) Yiddishist/Bundist conceptualization of the Yiddish Folk,

2) Zionist conceptualization of the Jewish nation or ethnonationality, and

3) the Jewish Marxist conceptualization of the Yiddish Jewish & Russianized Jewish economic class/stratum, which includes a phenomenological theory of Yiddish nationality.

An understanding of these identity constructs helps to pinpoint the similarities and differences between Zionism and other forms of white racist genocidal European settler colonialism — especially those in French Algeria and Apartheid South Africa, whose variants of racist settler colonialism are probably most similar to Zionism.

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